Thursday, February 20, 2003

JDBGMGR.EXE is NOT a virus!

Aargh. The clever thing about the JDBGMGR.exe virus hoax is that the vector for transmission is usually well-meaning deliberate action by friends and acquaintances, not an automated program hiding in the PC's bowels. But I've received about three of these in the past week alone, so the novelty is wearing quite thin.

The bottom line: if you receive an email from a friend that says:

A Virus has been passed on to me by a contact. My address book in turn has been affected [though I have now deleted the virus] and as your address is in there, there is a chance that the virus could be in your computer too. I followed the following instructions to eradicate the Virus. The Virus is not detected by Norton or Macafee anti Virus systems. this Virus sits quietly for 14 days before damaging your system. It is sent automatically by the messenger and the address book, whether or not you send E mails to your contacts.

Here's how to check for the Virus and get rid of it:

1.Go to Start, Find or search option.

2.In the file/folders option type the name jdbgmgr.exe

3.Be sure you SEARCH YOUR C DRIVE and all the sub folders and any other drives you may have.

4.Click "Find Now"

5.The virus has a grey teddy bear icon with the name jdbgmgr.exe DO NOT OPEN IT

6.Go to edit on the menu bar and choose SELECT ALL to highlight the file without opening it.#

7.Now go to file on the menu bar and select DELETE. It will then go into the recycle bin

then it is a HOAX. The file is actually the Microsoft Debugger Registrar for Java (not really critical to your PC, unless you are a Java developer). Still, almost everyone has this file on their system.